by Cherry Adair
“What makes you think you know what I’ve been doing?”
Sweat trickled between her breasts. An emerald green lizard scurried across the wall behind him. Riva swiveled her attention back to him. “I make it my business to know everything about my marks.”
“Am I also one of your ‘marks’?”
“No,” Riva said sweetly. “I’d off you for free.”
Apparently unaffected by her threat, his gaze traveled down the length of her body, lingering hotly at her breasts and making her wonder whether he interpreted “offing him” as an offer of sex.
He pushed away from the wall, his Glock still aimed for a kill shot. “Thanks for your offer to take care of Maza, but I’ll deal with him myself.”
“Really?” She gave him a mocking glance, then observed two soldiers pass outside the window in her peripheral vision. “He moved in on you. On all your territories, didn’t he? He’s bigger and badder than you. More men. More firepower. A hell of a lot more money. When he’s done, the ANLF will be nothing but a footnote in the Anarchists’ Handbook. You two have been trying to kill each other for months.”
“He tried to kill me. As you can see, he didn’t succeed.”
“You’ve tried to kill him and you haven’t succeeded either. You knock off one of his top lieutenants, he knocks off one of yours. Yet somehow you’ve never managed to kill each other. It’s a pathetic game of chess. And you know damn well that five months isn’t long in terms of these conflicts. It could go on for decades. Instead of getting ahead, whatever form that takes for you, you’ll be struggling to stay in place, and it’s looking like that will be a losing battle.
“I can help you. I’m excellent at my job. Let me go so I can get close to Maza’s camp, and I’ll take care of your biggest problem for you. Cut off the head, and the Sangre Y Puño will be rudderless and scrambling for leadership. Hell, if you want the job, it’ll be yours for the taking.”
Over T-FLAC’s dead body, but Sin Diaz didn’t know he’d be just as dead as Maza if he tried to fill the other tango’s powerful shoes.
Except Riva didn’t have a vision of him dead. Far from it. She saw some kind of metamorphosis, but it wasn’t death. She shook her head to dispel the half-baked vision.
“But first I need to retrieve my bag from the crash site.” Besides needing the important contents, she wanted her underwear, for God’s sake. Being practically naked usually didn’t bother her. She was used to being with an all-male team. And while she never flaunted her goods, she wasn’t a shy violet either. But she needed more than mere body armor when Sin Diaz was around, because while she thought of him as a ruthless terrorist, she also thought of him as hot and sexy.
The contradictions were getting to her. Evil men normally didn’t turn her on, and she’d never before had visions of herself having sex—and so clearly enjoying it—with a man who was her captor.
“You’re aware we’re in the middle of thousands of square miles of tropical rain forest? Maza and I aren’t next door neighbors, chica. Think of him as Osama bin Laden, visiting my country. No one knows where his hideout is. He doesn’t have a camp. Sometimes he hides out up here, sometimes in town, sometimes…” He shrugged broad shoulders. The angle of the sunlight showed his body covered by scars, large and small. Some she’d noticed before, but it was only in this light that she saw more. Car accident? Bar fight? Terrorist activities?
She could match him scar for scar, but most of hers were where they didn’t show.
“Always on the move,” he finished. “You won’t find him.”
“Bin Laden was hunted down and killed,” Riva pointed out, using her bare foot to scratch an itch on her ankle. A wedge of sunlight illuminated the peeling paint on the headboard. “If you were capable of finding him, he’d be dead. He isn’t.”
“Like I said, he moves around, a lot. It’s a shell game. No one can find him, until they find him, and then they’re dead. I’ve searched almost every inch of the city and practically under every leaf in this jungle for months. If he’s here, he has some serious wizard powers, and he’s disguised as one of the two thousand species of plants. Or any one of several hundred animals.”
“If I tell you where he is, will you take me close enough to walk in?”
“If we don’t know where he is, how do you?”
“Like I told you, I insisted on having a GPS location for my predictions. I know exactly where he is. At least until the nineteenth. Eight days. Then all bets are off.”
“Give me the coordinates.”
Riva gave him a flat look, then rattled off the GPS coordinates. The intel had come directly from Graciela Estigarribia before she was hauled off to Montana for interrogation. HQ would ascertain exactly what she’d been hired to help Maza decide, and while they had her, they also had questions about a recent Maza bombing in Mexico City, and another in Argentina. Graciela was a busy girl, her sway over Maza absolute. If the psychic said all systems were a go, they were a go. She had many third-world-country dictators, terrorists, and political martyrs on speed dial.
Graciela had power and she’d wielded it through her tango clients.
Riva now had that power and a clear shot to Maza. Either Sin stepped aside or she’d kill him. Maza’s boss was out of the way, now. She didn’t need to worry about Stonefish. He was currently enjoying the hospitality in some undisclosed American supermax, awaiting trial.
“Clock’s ticking, Diaz.” Riva pushed away from the wall. The golden wedge of sunlight had already moved halfway up the narrow bed. A confetti of red dots, her blood and filaments of rope, made an interesting still life on the shadowy end of the bare mattress. “I’m the answer to your prayers. Let me loose, and I’ll simplify your life in ways you can’t imagine.”
Sin walked to the metal locker, pulled open the door, and rummaged around inside. He came back to sit on the foot of the bed, something in his large hand. Far too damn close. Their knees were practically touching.
“Maza has a jammer blocking our satellite feed. This won’t be worth shit until we’re on higher ground, if then.”
“No GPS?”
“I have an old fashioned compass. It works. I’ll input the data, we’ll see when it kicks in.”
The air was hot and humid as the sun climbed higher, baking the cement block walls. Sweat rolled down her temple and gathered between her breasts as she waited for him to input the coordinates into her GPS. It was not encouraging to discover that there was no satellite link.
But seeing the device, Riva’s heart leapt. That GPS had been in her pocket. Had it fallen out? Or, he’d found her bag. She’d dreaded hiking to the crash site to look for it. Apparently she hadn’t been the only thing Sin had brought back to camp.
“You’re sure of this?” He glanced up. Riva simply stared at him. “Of course you are.”
If her GPS was close by, so was everything else she needed. Weapons, clothes, insect repellent, her toys. Elated, she could barely stand still. “How long will it take to get me close enough to walk into Maza’s compound?”
He shot a glance at the GPS. “Two, three days, give or take. Let’s pretend that you really are as good as you say you are. You plan on just strolling into his camp—”
“He’s expecting me. Or rather, he was. Believe me, he’ll be extremely happy to see me alive and well. And if it’ll take two or three days to get to him, I have to go now.”
Shit. Two or three days could mean the whole mission was FUBAR. Maza had wanted to consult his psychic before doing whatever the hell horrible thing he was planning on doing. Riva didn’t know if he’d wait if he thought she was dead. Hell. He could just call another psychic. She had to get to him as fast as possible, and have a face-to-face with him.
Maybe she’d get there before he did whatever bad crap he had planned. Maybe she could stop it. She could definitely still kill him, late or not.
“I sweetened the pot by bringing him a little gift.” She didn’t consider for a moment that Sin hadn’t disco
vered the tightly wrapped package in the bottom of her bag. She had an explanation for that, too, should he bring it up.
“Fake psychic or not, Maza’s people won’t let you anywhere near him, no matter how you bat those long lashes and flash your pretty tits. Why don’t I just shoot you now and save them the trouble?”
Why don’t I just shoot you now, and save myself the heartache and drama you’ll cause me later? As soon as she thought it, Riva’s insides clenched. Mio Dios.
He wasn’t just going to give her great sex; the aftermath would be something far different than post-coital bliss. He’d leave her with more scars than she already had, and the ones he inflicted would be impossible to ignore.
Her visions sucked because there was no filter. She saw good and bad, and the sharp pang of her heartache told her that this man’s bad would far outweigh the good. This man, if she let him closer, was going to do something to her that no man had done to her since childhood. He was going to pierce the steel walls she had erected around her heart and grievously wound her. Not just no, but hell no.
Wasn’t going to happen.
She struggled to remember his last question, fighting hard not to reveal to him her internal confusion. Shoulders squared, voice steady, she asked, “How would shooting me help rid you of your enemy, because obviously, you need help.”
“As a matter of no interest, what do you think will happen when his men see you kill their leader? Think you’ll just shoot him and somehow survive yourself? And if, by some miracle, you get out of his camp alive, how do you think you’ll make it through the jungle on your own?”
He dangled the GPS in one large hand between his spread knees. The Glock was still pointed in the general vicinity of her right breast. Damn it, he should look effeminate with that long hair. It was the color of dark chocolate and had a slight wave to it. Instead, the shiny strands highlighted the strong planes of his face, and his rugged jawline, and looked so touchable that Riva curled her fingers into her palms.
“It’s a hard hike through treacherous areas filled with dangerous animals and various other guerrilla groups,” he told her unnecessarily. “Anyone traveling alone will be food, bait, or if they survive, held for ransom. And a woman?” He shook his head ominously. “Far, far worse.”
“I know all that. I’ll take one danger at a time.” She did hard, intense, annual SERE training at T-FLAC HQ in Montana. Grueling courses of survival, evasion, resistance, and escape. “Everything I need is in my bag. Give it to me and I’ll be good to go. Hell, forget I even asked for your help, since you’re obviously not willing to provide assistance. I can find my own way to Maza. You don’t have to lift a finger. Merely turn a blind eye. Send me a thank-you note and a gift later. Not your firstborn. A big emerald will do. Give me my GPS and—”
The same two soldiers passed the window again. “Are they keeping an eye on me, or you?”
Expression unchanged, Sin rose from the bed. “That’s the question, isn’t it?” Tossing her GPS onto the mattress, he opened the door and looked out. “Hurry up before they come back. Close this behind you.”
The two men were halfway down what passed as a street. “This way.” He led her around back, where the jungle encroached. Everyone seemed to be at the other end of the compound, no one walking around, no one to see him lead her to what looked like thick vegetation behind his hut.
It would be an excellent place to hide a body.
Crapdamnshit. He was going to kill her.
Sin was not happy leading her there in broad daylight. No one knew about his storeroom. He liked it that way. His grip tightened on her upper arm, and he pressed the Glock to her ribs.
“If you think you can lead me off into the wild to get the drop on me, think again, Diaz.”
A wall of vines hung over the corrugated iron roof to trail on the ground in a thick carpet of large, glossy, dark green leaves. Other than the narrow entry where they’d slid beside the wall of his quarters, there was nowhere to run. The jungle here was impenetrable.
When Sin released her arm, she rubbed at the white marks his hand had left there and looked around. “Is this a joke? There’s nothing back here.”
“That’s the way I want it to look.” He shoved aside a tangle of heavy vines to reveal the hidden door, covered in camouflage paint done so skillfully that it blended in perfectly with the foliage.
The addition was attached to the back wall of his living quarters. The small room, eight by four by eight, was watertight, animal and insect proof, and until this moment known only to himself.
Being an insomniac helped. He’d constructed the steel-lined room at night and in secret, while he was recuperating, stocking it slowly and methodically with an arsenal of weapons, clothes, cash, and nonperishable foods. He had another cache in the jungle between camp and Santa de Porres. Another between camp, Abad, and the river.
He reached over and tapped on a barely visible keypad.
“It weighs three times as much as you do. Try to pull it open.”
She shot him a look, got a grip on the recessed handle, and got nowhere fast. He smiled grimly, reached down, and hauled the door open. She peered in.
“Wow,” she said admiringly. Ceiling-to-floor gun racks on two walls held weapons. Handguns, semiautomatics, boxes of ammo. Metal shelving on the third wall held supplies. “Nice. Your weapons live better than you do.”
True. It hadn’t been easy, but Sin couldn’t explain, even to himself, his burning, gut instinct that he needed to protect himself. Enemies within, enemies without… Paranoid? Maybe. But better safe than sorry. Or dead.
“Your stuff’s on the shelf on the right over there. Grab your bags, and then get dre— Fuck,” he said under his breath, smelling cigarette smoke.
Without warning, Sin covered her mouth, his hard hand pressing against her lips. He shook his head. His expression told her something unwelcome had surprised him.
With the heavy door open, the space behind his hovel was barely wide enough for the two of them to stand. He’d done an incredible job of camouflaging it, and it really was an ideal place to stash a body. So much for a ceasefire between them. He was back to his macho bullshit. He’d had no intention of letting her just walk away.
Kicking and struggling, she clamped down and bit his finger hard, tasting coppery blood, then drew her arm back for a punch. He blocked her strike with a forearm as hard as tungsten steel.
Yanking his finger from her teeth, eyes on fire, he tightened his large hand across the lower half of her face until she could barely breathe. Oh crap. Was he about to snap her neck after all? She struggled harder, nails digging into the hard hand across her face.
“If you want to live, stop fighting me,” he snarled in a voice that was nothing more than a harsh whisper full of gravel and threat. He jerked his chin to the way they had come.
It was only then that Riva smelled smoke.
Oh shit. Mommy Dearest.
Riva had been so focused on Sin and the tantalizing potential of recovering the backpack containing all her fun toys, that she hadn’t caught the stink of cigarette smoke or the sound of footsteps soon enough.
She wanted that Glock back.
Okay, so he wasn’t going to kill her.
He shook his head again, eyes warning her to be still as he pulled her hard against his hot, hard body. Heat radiated off his skin as if he was on fire. He shifted slightly so he could shut the heavy metal door. It swung closed with an expensive, quiet snap as the locks automatically engaged. Ruffling the vines so they tangled over the small building’s entrance, he stepped back, dragging her with him.
“I can hear your brain working,” he said dryly, right in her ear, his breath hot and humid against her temple. “Shut it off and listen. When I lift my hand I want you to scream as if you mean it, understand?”
He waited a second for her to nod, which she did. Something in his hard gaze told her to do as he said when every rebellious cell in her body wanted to tell him to go to hell.
He removed his hand. Riva screamed as if she were being tortured.
“Keep it up. Move.” He used her as a fulcrum and marched her ahead of him, then strong-armed her around to the front of his hovel to see his mother accompanied by four heavily armed men standing at the open door.
Here we go again. “Geez, short umbilical cord?” she muttered under her breath between screams.
“You allowed her to escape again?” Mommy Dearest snapped, black, soulless eyes on her tall son.
Sin held the Glock so his mother could see it, and used the barrel to indicate he had Riva in a death grip, her skin turning white under his fingers on her upper arm. “She had to pee.”
“Why haven’t you restrained her? What has she told you?” Angélica Diaz, aka the Angel of freaking Death, stepped forward in a ridiculously aggressive manner, considering they’d left her less than thirty minutes earlier.
Riva controlled her instinctive reach for her weapon. For crapsake, she still didn’t have on underwear, let alone a holster and gun. Her weapons had been so near and yet so frigging far.
“Where could she go?” Sin’s tone was hard, rough. He was cutting off the circulation in her upper arm, but Riva was riveted by the animosity pulsing between them.
Uh-oh. More trouble in paradise? Awesome.
The more than a foot difference in heights between Angélica and her son should’ve made her look ridiculous. Instead it was like watching two attack dogs squaring off. One large and menacing physically, the other scary and threatening through sheer intent.